1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to leaf gathering machines and to leaf balers and, more particularly, to an apparatus that will gather, crush, compress, and bale leaves and other debris.
2. Technical Background
The gathering and disposal of leaves is an essential activity to maintain the cleanliness and appearance of a variety of public lands, golf courses, and homes, including lawns and natural areas. Leaf gathering and disposal usually occurs in the fall in the northern hemisphere but can occur at other times of the year if plant-like material accumulates, such as pine cones, pine needles, tall grasses, shrubbery, weeds, and the like. Leaves and other related yard debris are usually separated from garbage and general household trash. Leaves and other yard debris can be used for composting so that landfill space is reserved for trash that is not suitable for composting. A common method of gathering and disposing of leaves by homeowners is to rake the leaves and to place them into trash bags, which is a burdensome chore. Raking leaves, picking them up, and placing them in bags is stressful work and is often beyond the ability of many older individuals or individuals with compromised health.
In some communities, the homeowners can rake leaves into a pile on the side of the street. Generally the leaves and other yard materials are deposited in a windrow adjacent to or on the edge of the street. A vehicle with a collection bin and a vacuum pickup the leaves and yard debris and hold these materials in a bin. The vacuum pickup is usually manipulated manually while gathering leaves. The bin tends to fill rapidly because in this process the leaves are not compressed. When the bin is fill, the machine stops gathering leaves and moves to a disposal site or transfer station where the bin is unloaded. During transport and unloading, the machine is not available to pickup leaves, which limits the rate at which leaves can be picked up and removed throughout the day.
Full capacity bagger attachments are known for use on lawn mowing machines. Some of these employ an auger to feed leaf material into a bag and compress the material in the bag. These mowing machines have limited capacity to pickup leaves. They are slow and frequently plug with leaves. Once the bag is full, the mowing machine is stopped, the operator dismounts from the machine, closes the bag manually, removes the filled bag from the machines, mounts an empty bag in position to be filled, and then returns to the machine to resume the leaf bagging operation. The stationary bagging machines and the bagger attachments for lawn mowing machines fill relatively small bags. All bags are handled manually after they are filled. The major drawbacks of these bagging machine systems are the cost of the bags and the fact that the systems can be relatively labor intensive.
Full capacity machines are known which will gather leaves, shred the leaves, deposit the leaves to an auger, and the auger will direct the leaves to a bag. In these machines, the leaf gathering mechanism is a paddle like device and the shredder employs knife-like elements. The drawbacks of devices such as these are that sticks and similar debris amongst the leaves can cause the gathering mechanism or the shredder to jam. Sticks and the like can also jam between the auger and its housing. The present invention overcomes these drawbacks by providing a leaf gathering, crushing, compacting, and baling system which does not require the use of an auger and will bale the leaves automatically without the use of a bag.
The present invention recognizes and addresses various of the foregoing limitations and drawbacks, and others, concerning leaf and debris gathering and bagging apparatuses. Therefore, the present invention is directed to a leaf gathering and baling apparatus which compacts the leaves and related debris by crushing and compressing the debris.
A first advantage of the present invention is that it crushes leaves, sticks, pine straw, pinecones and related debris on lawns, yards, and fields. Yet another advantage of the present invention is that it has unlimited capacity because it continuously bales and eliminates leaves. In such context, the present invention produces bales that can be conveniently lifted and carried.
Still another advantage of the present invention is that it automatically gathers leaves thereby avoiding raking. Further, another advantage of the present invention is that it is hydraulically driven. Still further, another advantage of the present invention is that it does not have augers which require a housing.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it is removably attachable to a prime mover. Finally, another advantage of the present invention is that can be used without the compactor and baler to produce mulch.
In one exemplary embodiment, there may be provided a gathering and baling apparatus capable of crushing sticks and similar material associated with the leaves. The apparatus is reversibly attached to a prime mover that can move the apparatus across lawns and fields as needed. In a first embodiment of the present invention, the front portion of the apparatus may have brushes extending diagonally at an angle to the centerline of the apparatus. The brushes roll inwardly on their bottom edges to gather leaves towards the front of the apparatus. The roller brushes direct and lift the leaves to a crusher. The crusher has one or more pairs of crushing rollers. Each crushing roller in a pair has crushing vanes and the crushing vane of one crushing roller interdigitate or meshes with the crushing vane of the other crushing roller. The crushing rollers are driven by a motor to rotate towards one another so that the leaves and sticks and related debris from the brushes will be fed into the crushing roller pair and be crushed by the crushing vanes as the crushing rollers rotate. Crushed material can pass through one or more additional pairs of like crushing rollers, but will eventually fall and be pushed to the bottom of the crusher where it will be forced out of the crusher by a similar pair of crushing rollers with crushing vanes and be deposited onto a conveyor mechanism. The conveyor mechanism moves the crushed debris to a baler assembly. The baler assembly has two compacting rollers contained within a continuous band. One of the baler assembly compacting rollers is fixed and the other compacting roller is movable. When the movable compacting roller is moved away from the fixed compacting roller, the band can receive the crushed debris from the conveyor mechanism. Once the crushed debris is deposited on the band, the adjustable compacting roller is moved toward the fixed compacting roller, thereby compressing the debris further. The compacting rollers are rotated in the same direction by motors, causing the crushed compressed debris to rotate within the band. As the crushed debris rotates within the band, baling material such as paper is inserted between the compacting rollers and is directed by the moving band around the rotating debris. The paper tightly encircles the rotating debris, thus baling it. The movable roller within the compactor is moved away from the fixed roller, the baler assembly is rotated, and the baled debris is expelled. This sequence of gathering, crushing, conveying, compacting, and baling debris is produced continuously and automatically as the apparatus moves forward gathering leaves.
In a second exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the front portion of the apparatus may have brushes extending diagonally at an angle to the centerline of the apparatus. The brushes roll inwardly on their bottom edges to gather leaves towards the front of the apparatus. The roller brushes direct and lift the leaves to a conveyor mechanism. The conveyor mechanism moves the crushed debris to a crusher. The crusher has one or more pairs of crushing rollers. Each crushing roller in a pair has crushing vanes and the crushing vane of one crushing roller interdigitate or meshes with the crushing vane of the other crushing roller. The crushing rollers are driven by a motor to rotate towards one another so that the leaves and sticks and related debris from the brushes will be fed into the crushing roller pair and be crushed by the crushing vanes as the crushing rollers rotate. Crushed material can pass through one or more additional pairs of like crushing rollers, but will eventually fall and be pushed to the bottom of the crusher where it will be forced out of the crusher by a similar pair of crushing rollers with crushing vanes and be deposited into a baler assembly. The baler assembly has two compacting rollers contained within a continuous band. One of the baler assembly compacting rollers is fixed and the other compacting roller is movable. When the movable compacting roller is moved away from the fixed compacting roller, the band can receive the crushed debris from the conveyor mechanism. Once the crushed debris is deposited on the band, the adjustable compacting roller is moved toward the fixed compacting roller, thereby compressing the debris further. The compacting rollers are rotated in the same direction by motors, causing the crushed compressed debris to rotate within the band. As the crushed debris rotates within the band, baling material, such as paper is inserted between the compacting rollers and is directed by the moving band around the rotating debris. The paper tightly encircles the rotating debris, thus baling it. The movable roller within the compactor is moved away from the fixed roller, the baler assembly is rotated, and the baled debris is expelled. This sequence of gathering, conveying, crushing, compacting, and baling debris is produced continuously and automatically as the apparatus moves forward gathering leaves.
In a third exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus is attached to a prime mover, such as a lawn mower base. Unlike the other alternative embodiments, the present embodiment lacks brushes extending diagonally at an angle to the centerline of the apparatus for the collection of debris. In the present embodiment, debris is manually introduced by the operator into the crusher. The crusher has one or more pairs of crushing rollers. Each crushing roller in a pair has crushing vanes and the crushing vane of one crushing roller interdigitate or meshes with the crushing vane of the other crushing roller. The crushing rollers are driven by a motor to rotate towards one another so that the leaves and sticks and related debris from the brushes will be fed into the crushing roller pair and be crushed by the crushing vanes as the crushing rollers rotate. Crushed material can pass through one or more additional pairs of like crushing rollers, but will eventually fall and be pushed to the bottom of the crusher where it will be forced out of the crusher by a similar pair of crushing rollers with crushing vanes and be deposited into a baler assembly. The baler assembly has two compacting rollers contained within a continuous band. One of the baler assembly compacting rollers is fixed and the other compacting roller is movable. When the movable compacting roller is moved away from the fixed compacting roller, the band can receive the crushed debris from the conveyor mechanism. Once the crushed debris is deposited on the band, the adjustable compacting roller is moved toward the fixed compacting roller, thereby compressing the debris further. The compacting rollers are rotated in the same direction by motors, causing the crushed compressed debris to rotate within the band. As the crushed debris rotates within the band, baling material, such as paper is inserted between the compacting rollers and is directed by the moving band around the rotating debris. The paper tightly encircles the rotating debris, thus baling it. The movable roller within the compactor is moved away from the fixed roller, the baler assembly is rotated, and the baled debris is expelled. The crushing, compacting, and baling sequence is guided by the user during the operation of the apparatus. The present embodiment is significantly smaller in size than the alternative embodiments and while motor driven is primarily manual in its continuous operation.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention are set forth in, or will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the detailed description as follows. Also, it should be further appreciated that modifications and variations to the specifically illustrated and discussed features and materials hereof may be-practiced in various embodiments and uses of this invention without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, by virtue of present reference thereto. Such variations may include, but are not limited to, substitutions of the equivalent means, features, and materials for those shown or discussed, and the functional or positional reversal of various parts, features, or the like.
Still further, it is to be understood that different embodiments, as well as different presently preferred embodiments, of this invention, may include various combinations or configurations of presently disclosed features, elements, or their equivalents (including combinations of features or configurations thereof not expressly shown in the figures or stated in the detailed description).
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following descriptions and appended claims. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate an embodiment of the invention and, together with the descriptions, serve to explain the principles of the invention.